For once, Maggie McKendrick just wants to control her own life. Her overbearing Hollywood director father has it all planned out for her: UCLA, law school, then working as an entertainment lawyer, preferably for him. But Maggie has other, more creative-spirit friendly, plans. Namely, Thrippletons School of Fashion and Design in England, and then onto becoming a designer, preferably a wildly successful one. The big snag in her plan? Getting it past her dad.

A movie shoot takes the family to the Scottish Highlands for the summer, and closer to Maggie’s dream school. While there, she runs into the charming Preston Browne. Maggie is intrigued and decides to bend her no guys rule—instituted after her ex used her to get close to her dad. Forced to keep secrets from Preston in order to protect the future plans she’s made, Maggie finds herself falling for the tall Brit. And for once in her life she knows that he’s interested in her, not her Hollywood connections. When Maggie's father blackmails her into dating his lead actor, she isn’t left with a choice. The biggest problem isn’t having to date hunky, mega-hottie, Ben Chambers. No, it’s praying she doesn’t lose Preston in the process.

Excelling at her dream school, Maggie’s personal life is a tangled mess. She needs to decide if living a lie is worth losing Preston or chance going against her father and facing his wrath. When the tabloids expose the truth of her fake relationship with Ben, Maggie's world is thrown into a tailspin. Ultimately, Maggie must find the courage to take risks and forge ahead on her own path.

Review

This book follows Maggie and her family as they move out to the Scottish Highlands for the summer. Maggie is close with her mother and brother, but her father is a big director and she is far from close from her father. We can tell right off the bat that Maggie's father rules the family and she is constantly walking on eggshells around him. Maggie really opens up throughout the book about the struggles that she has had in life. The author did a great job setting up the scenes for the book and all of the little details. I felt like when I was reading I was able to picture where Maggie was going and what she was seeing. The author did a great job with details to help create a very vivid picture of what was going on.I liked Maggie as the main character in the book. She is still very young with just entering college so some of the things that she does is not in the best judgement, but it matches with her being so young. I felt like Maggie had a very strong support system in place even if she didn't always see it that way. The story is told completely through Maggie's eyes and she really grew on me throughout the book. I did like that we got to see her fears and flaws as well as her successes it gave me a true picture of who she was as a character.

There are a few side characters in the book that I just couldn't stand like Ben Chambers. I felt like the author didn't really focus on him to much so I got a bad taste in my mouth from the small details that I knew about him. The story is very cute to follow along with and the author does a great job keeping the reader entertained. I didn't see some of the stuff comingin the book so it was a great read!

Things I didn't love was the topic of abuse was brought up a lot during the book and I felt like it was handled well. I sort of felt like it was an after thought. I felt like we all knew what was going on and the author didn't want to make it to graphic because then it would have needed to be addressed further. This was the main reason I couldn't give this book a 5, although it is a very enjoyable read. I would suggest this as a perfect nighttime read. The book was very easy to follow along with and I enjoyed reading about Maggie's life crisis. The book is pretty fast paced so it was very easy to take your mind off of everything.

I received a copy of this book from The Fantastic Flying Book Club for the purpose of providing an honest review. This does not effect my opinion of this book.

Emily Albright's debut novel, THE HEIR AND THE SPARE, is releasing January 18, 2016 from Merit Press.

She's a writer, a major bookworm, a lover of romantic movies, a wife, a mother, an owner of one adorable (yet slightly insane) cockapoo, and uses way too many :).